JOE CAMEL ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

To whom it may concern:

Case Description

History

• highly successful advertising campaign begun by R. J. Reynolds (RJR)  in 1988
• on billboards
• promotional merchandise
• etc.
• successfully targeting underage smokers
• internal company documents reveal a deliberate strategy to attract underage smokers to their product:
• an industry wide strategy
• 2/3 of smokers start in their teens
• smokers show strong brand loyalty
• a highly successful stragegy
• Camel's market share among teens tripled in the campaigns first year
• quadrupled in five years: to around 13%
• criticism & legal challenges
• 1991 the Journal of the American Medical Association charged RJR with targeting minors through this campaign
• 1991: Janet Mangini, a San Francisco family law attorney, brought suit to end the campaign
• March 1997: FTC brought suit against R. J. Reynolds
• Charging the Joe Camel campaign unfairly targeted children
• Alleging that the campaign contributed to an increase in overall rate of teen smoking
• Seeking a permanent ban on the use of Joe's image
• and to force R. J. Reynolds to pay for an anti-smoking campaign aimed at kids.
• May 1997: Various California Govt. entities intervened in the suit to help end the Joe Camel campaign
• July 1997: RJR agrees to settlement of Mangini suit, agreeing
• to drop the Joe Camel advertising campaign
• to release documents pertaining to the case
• to pay $10 million for anti-smoking campaigns throughout California
• Jan 1999: FTC dropped suit deciding the relief it sought from RJR was largely accomplished by
• the recent multistate tobacco settlement
• revisions to the U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services data collection protocol
• R. J. Reynolds defense claims
• that it was targeting smokers in the 18-24 age group
•  that cigarette advertising has not been shown to affect overall rates of use
• affects brand preference and market share
• other social factors responsible for increased rates of youth smoking
• that the ads, consequently, were not harmful to teens
• that a ruling against the ad would infringe R. J. Reynolds First Amendment free speech rights.

Current Case Status

• Joe has been banished to cartoon character Siberia
• a search of the RJR site reveals no references to Joe
• just youth smoking policy statement
• carefully worded, to be sure
• but still remarkably concessive compared to before
• Joe's image is seldom seen . . . even on the internet

Ethical Impact Assessment

Utility

• Pro Joe
• entertainment value of campaign
• R. J. Reynolds' success fuels the economy
• teen smokers enjoy smoking
• Anti Joe: if Joe campaign does lead to increased teen smoking many health costs
• Assessment: health costs outweigh economic & entertainment & illicit enjoyment benefits
• probably advertising aimed at teens does increase overall rates of teen smoking
• resulting, probably, in massive long-range health costs

Justice

• Compensatory
• Pro Joe: compensation (in the form of funding that advertising campaign) is not due
• consumers weren't harmed: they would have smoked anyhow (just not Camel)
• the campaign wasn't deliberately aimed at underage smokers
• Anti-Joe: compensation (funding anti-smoking advertising) is due
• the company foresaw that these adds appealed to smokers younger than 18
• in a way that was uninformative (purely persuasive) & manipulative
• and an inducement to illegal & unhealthy behavior
• Distributive:
• Pro Joe: Marlboro (by Philip Morris ) has a far greater market share among underage smokers
• Assessment: If R. J. Reynolds owes this form of "compensation" so does Phillip Morris.
• Retributive
• Anti-Joe: those responsible for this campaign should be punished for deliberately harming children.
• Pro-Joe: those responsible were only doing their job & should not be punished for doing it well.
• Assessment: punishment may be warranted, but legal & internal remedies are both ill-advised
• in principle:
• those responsible were knowingly harming children for the sake of profit
• their actions were tantamount to pushing addictive drugs to children
• which is highly blameworthy
• and for certain drugs legally so
• in practice
• legal retribution is unwarranted: tobacco, unlike marijuana, is legal
• internal retribution is unwarranted: they were only doing their job well (contrast: falsification of test results)
• retribution is warranted against corporations
• though not individuals
• assignment of punitive as well as compensatory damages in civil cases against tobacco companies is warranted

Rights

• Pro Joe:
• R. J. Reynolds (and Joe's authors') first amendment rights of free speech are infringed
• Adults rights to enjoy the Joe's image & merchandise infringed
• Anti Joe: children's rights:
• not to be lured into a harmful addictions
• which will interfere with their long-term rights
• to life
• & the pursuit of happiness
• Assessment: Children's rights prevail.
• Insofar as children are vulnerable their rights are due extra protection.
• Serious rights of children
• future health
• and quality of life
• Less serious rights of RJR & others
• commercial speech & expression rights are less weighty than rights to artistic, religious, & political expression
• corporate speech rights are more alienable than individuals'
• individuals are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"
• insofar as corporations are creations of law, their rights are rightly alienable by law

Care

• Pro Joe: Attn.: RJR
• Stockholders & Camel employees: effective marketing & advertising effort curtailed
• Joe-loving-customers & noncustomers: are deprived of legitimate pleasure
• the artist (whose brain-child has been banished to intellectual Siberia): and that's a shame
• Anti Joe: Attn.: candidates Abraham & Stabenow
• the targeted consumers, being children, are owed an extra measure of care by society
• Assessment: the nation's care obligations to its children outweigh RJR's care obligations to stockholders, etc.

Recommendations

• Mandated funding of anti-smoking campaigns aimed at minors to be funded by tobacco companies is warranted.
• on an ongoing basis
• proportionate to their underage market shares
• such compensation should be generous in lieu of retribution
• Voluntary contributions to research on and development of smoking-related illnesses should also be made
• smokers who contract these illnesses
• are owed a measure of care as customers
• a tithe of 10% of their annual profits from tobacco would perhaps be an appropriate figure
• Trademark & copyrights on Joe's image should be forfeit to the public domain
• not the artist: he had his reward
• free Joe!
• Societal substance control policies need to be rationalized
• present inconsistencies, e.g.,
• between control of marijuana & heroin
• as opposed to tobacco & alcohol
• such inconsistencies are morally unjust: equal harms are equally foul
• and proving more & more legally unworkable:
• moral confusion of jurors fuel out-of-control damage judgments
• high level of hypocrisy implicit in these inconsistencies undermines the "War on Drugs"